This interview was done in March of 2018. Since then our hopes did not materialize for a variety of reasons. Please note how Mudar fingered the relationship with Iran which has recently come out of the closet. Also, just as Mudar claimed, last year saw the advent of the Abraham Accords.
Part l
Part ll
@Bear
I am surprised by your tenacity. You have made your challenge. The discussion is over. I won’t let it continue.
@Bear
We are the only ones who conditioned our JO on the abdication of the King. That will be the key to our success. Eldad spoke at my conference.
Like I said before, believe what you want.
They don’t know him like I do. I will not comment on them again and I will delete any reference to them.
In the past the strongest proponent that Jordan is Palestine was Dr. Areyh Eldad advocated for Jordan as Palestine and he was in the past a Knesset Member. He was advocating for this for years. I saw him speaking on this perhaps in 2004. He had been advocating for this for long before this. Supposedly long before this Sharon and Yigal Allon actually advocated for this concept.
https://www.jpost.com/diplomacy-and-politics/jordan-is-palestine-mk-eldad-declares-at-embassy
@Bear
I don’t have personal knowledge if it is true or false. But here is what I do know.
Mudar has been an outspoken Arab against the king, the PA, Hamas, among others since his twenties. The evidence for this is his conviction by the king for slandering the king, his address to the parliament committee of the EU and his debate with Col Kemp at the Oxford Union.
While living in the UK he earned his PhD. Rather than seek a normal life and salary he chose to lead the opposition to the Hashemite Monarchy, putting his life and his family at risk and stuck to it. After 10 years of interacting with him, I can safely say, I know him. Whereas you do not. Since 2017 we have believed that success was at hand a number of times. Such beliefs were honestly come by. The only thing that might be said of us is that we were too optimistic. Nevertheless we never gave up. We believed in our cause and remained committed to it. In our judgement we believed the goal was achievable.
\
As I have said many times, we did not want to enlist the Knesset or the Congress. So it is no surprise to me that no Israeli leader or Knesset member has mentioned his name or the JO. They don’t know about what is going on. Besides, who wants to publicly call for the end of the monarchy. No one but us.
A year ago Mudar wrote
“Change in Jordan, Easy, Cheap and Good for Everyone”. He wasn’t dreaming, he was reporting the facts.
Yet you ignore all this and call the JO a “farce” and Mudar a “liar” and me questionable.
@Michael
In fact, nobody has any respect for the Hashemites, certainly no Arab, and even more specifically and more emphatically, no Pal Arab. Tellingly, the Saudi’s are not new to being recognized as being the leaders among the Sunni Arab states, and the Hashemites, for all that their lineage might afford them, have never been so recognized, though they would like to fantasize along the same line of reasoning as you have raised. In fact, the Hashemites did not take control of Jordan by popular support but in lieu of it, as they were chosen to play the role of a British satrap in Jordan, much as they were Ottoman satraps in the Hejaz, due to the ill advised advice of Lawrence and the poor judgement of the British govt to act upon it. Furthermore, in comparison to the Hashemites who have subjugated their people to ever increasing hardships, the Saudis have been moving towards reform and moderation, albeit upon a measured pace but with real benefits to their people.
Of course, it matters little what the ordinary Arab really thinks about such things, as the role played in Al Aqsa will be decided without any census of the Arabs but rather, much as Abdullah I, the wretched scoundrel that he was, came to be appointed England’s bagman in Amman, as it were. Recall further that the motivation behind the ejection of the Hashemites from both Jordan and control of Al Aqsa would only be due to their great incompetence in managing either. They have ever sought to pursue a policy of blood libel and betrayal which has alienated every ally which has had the misfortune of supporting them. Their recent exposure in funding and arming the Arab revolt in Israel is fresh enough that it should provide an easy example of the benefits of being an Hashemite ally, but this is only the most recent example in a long list of betrayals perpetrated by the Hashemites among the Jews, the Arabs, and the West as well.
Of course, we will see what comes of the control over Al Aqsa, but the Arabs will not weep for the reallocation of control over this site away from the Hashemites to the Saudi’s, and, frankly, nobody would care if they did.
@Sebastian the PA is dissolving as I type. Abbas is almost done and has lost control of much of the PA. Question is what will happen. Currently Israel is doing things incrementally that is correct. There is no unified plan on what to do, that is correct, that has been made public. Maybe there are military contingency plans on taking over areas after Abbas is completely gone. Maybe some of these areas will be run as Emirates.
Barkat floated the idea of Emirates and we will see if this is tried. Would it be fool proof and without problems if it is tried, of course not. No easy solution to the conflict. Just makes no sense to keep discussing the fraud Mudar as solving anything (even potentially).
@Bear
Believe what you want. Like I said, I don’t care what you believe.
On June 15/’23 Abedalelah Amaala tweeted:
@Bear Right wing MKs are concentrating on incrementally expanding settlements rather than any sweeping grand solution from above and under this government, they are having some success. I believe that is all that can be done inside Israel at this time. Israelis are not United on this question. It’s just a matter of who is in power which is why the Judicial reform is so crucial.
The JO is not an international plan in as much as nothing is required of Israel unless Zahran comes to power and then it will just be subsides amounting to less than Israel is paying the PA now. it might even be private. There is no over-arching solution from above re-allocating power, people and territory that has any chance of success inside Israel.None. Zero. Zip, Nada, whether it’s the Singer’s Hashemite Plan, Kedar’s Emirates plan, Plaut’s reservations with white and black lists plan, or Felix’s World Revolution plan. The Levantine Arabs hate Jews and are stuck in Israel’s craw like a bad tooth. They must be incentivized to go in such a way that the Left, the Leftist Courts, and the nations can’t
Interpret it as coercion. And, long shot or not, that’s the JO.
“A new poll has found that the overwhelming majority of Palestinian Arabs support terrorism against Israel and regard terrorists as heroes.”
https://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/opinions/why-they-hate-israel/2023/06/16/
@ Sebstian, Emirates plan certainly is not perfect and nothing is easy in managing or resolving the conflict. What you view as a negative is that is up to Israelis to implement. True not easy but I prefer an Israeli plan over any international plan. Which American POTUS do you want controlling Israel? Which Jordanian do you want involved in managing Israeli affairs?
I prefer Israel controlling its own future and not foreigners no matter how well meaning. My outline of a plan is not the one’s you referenced. Nothing is holy however in any of these plans. As I said before I have no objection if Jordan ever becomes democratic and works together with Israel. To be understated I do not believe anything that comes from Mudar. Nothing he has said has ever come true over many many years. That is consistent. If someone else wants to believe him that is their right.
Jordanian/Palestinians hate Jews and Israel in the vast majority. A plan based on their good will to solve Israel’s problems is ludicrous.
@ Sebstian, Emirates plan certainly is not perfect and nothing is easy in managing or resolving the conflict. What you view as a negative is that is up to Israelis to implement. True not easy but I prefer an Israeli plan over any international plan. Which American POTUS do you want controlling Israel? Which Jordanian do you want involved in managing Israeli affairs?
I prefer Israel controlling its own future and not foreigners no matter how well meaning. My outline of a plan is not the one’s you referenced. Nothing is holy however in any of these plans.
What you missed in your analysis is that Israel is currently fighting all the terror groups in Judea/Samaria. This is has to be done in any case. Question is it one massive operation or many small operations like currently being done. There is no way around this.
I just watched the interview again and recommend that you all do likewise.. Mudar had a lot to say about the king, the protests, the Temple Mount and Saudi Arabia which you should take note of.
The Emirates Plan is certainly an improvement over the current status quo but it pales in comparison with the JO.
@Sebastien
A very well considered critique. Well done.
@Bear Unlike the JO, the Emirates plan would require Israeli political intervention and social engineering in the fractured and Israelophobic internal politics of Palestinian society. Absurd. Shades of Peres dreaming of turning Gaza into the Singapore of the Middle East. And what about security? Would the IDF be able to operate freely in these enclaves, as now? Any plan that relies on the good intentions of this or that Palestinian leader, as yet to be found, is a pipe dream, as has been demontrated over and over again.
The late Steven Plaut, as I have pointed out, suggested a version of the Emirates plan in 2013 but it requires a willingness by a unified Israeli society to restore at least some Arabs to Israeli military occupation but Israelis don’t want to do that again.
Here:
“…The villages and towns with the Arab reservations will be assigned to two lists, a white list and a black list. Those in the white list will manage their own affairs without interference from the Israeli central authorities. Residents of white-list towns may hold commuter jobs in Israeli cities and industrial parks. The local authorities in the white areas will manage their schools and other local institutions. They will collect their own taxes and may benefit from revenue sharing arrangements with the Israeli fiscal authorities, like other Israeli towns. They might be allowed to operate their own local police forces. Residents in white-listed areas will be fully and freely mobile, able to move freely within and among all white-list areas. They will be allowed to develop local industry and tourist services. Their residents will have access to Israel universities, health facilities, and other services.
Those towns and villages in the black list will enjoy none of the above. Their residents will be denied the opportunity to hold day jobs in Israeli cities and industrial parks. They will have no access to Israeli services. They will have control over nothing. Their residents will be prevented from moving freely outside their reservation, except in cases where they wish to leave the country altogether. They will receive no shared revenues, no fiscal incentives.
Villages and towns will be assigned to the two lists based entirely on one single factor: violence. Areas in which violence occurs, and this includes rock throwing, will be assigned to the black list. Areas in which violence is absent will be assigned to the white list. Towns and villages will be reassigned to the black list from the white list when terrorism, sniping, mortars, rockets, or other forms of violence occur there. Towns and villages in the black list will be assigned to the white list only when the local population cooperates fully with Israel in apprehending and arresting the terrorists and those engaged in violence, and takes other effective actions to end the violence. Otherwise they will remain on the black list indefinitely. Entry into black list areas will be denied to foreigners, journalists, and especially to the “International Solidarity” anarchists and their ilk. Any such anarchist infiltrating the areas of the black list will be denied permission to leave them and will remain there indefinitely, or else will be imprisoned by Israel….”
https://www.frontpagemag.com/time-annex-judea-and-samaria-steven-plaut/
This is what Kedar’s plan is missing but for the aforementioned reasons, not to mention the certainty of international sanctions and the probable damage to Israel’s budding diplomatic, military, and trade alliances with Muslim and third world countries as a counter-weight to the U.S, it can’t happen within the forseeable future.
Moreover, replacing the current heavily armed leaderships would require total war with Fatah,Lion’s Den, assorted lone wolves, etc.
In short,
Not tonight, Charlie.
All the JO requires is for an American president to tell the King to stay abroad and the military to install Zahran. Hasn’t been one willing so far, but if one takes office, it’s possible, even with the danger that the Mordia*, excuse me, the Muslim Brotherhood will stage a coup or Jordanian society will fracture and it’s long border with Israel become unstable, which is why Israeli leaders have clung to the King.
*satirical reference to “Where There’s Life” (1947) Bob Hope
“Plot
Hope plays an American radio announcer named Michael Valentine who finds out he is the new king of “Barovia”, although a secret society called the Mordia, which believes it has assassinated Valentine’s father, King Hubertus II, has other ideas.”
-Wikipedia
@Peloni something that zero Israel MKs discuss or promote is simply not on the Agenda. That Ted something says something is the horizon or coming is I am sorry to say not even slightly credible.
@Bear
As Ted previously noted, neither our belief nor our skepticism is needed or relevant to what is coming. You will however agree, correct me if I am mistaken, that the JO being operational would be an infinitely better project than Kedar’s plan.
@Bear I’m very familiar with Kedar’s Emirates plan but in addition to being even more of an improbable long shot, In my opinion, it just amounts to another territorial concession and is therefore unacceptable.
I think a version of the Kedar plan combined with, that is to say, within the Plaut Plan. and alongside the Belman/Zahran plan and the Kahane plan (he advocated compensated emigration not expulsion), would be good, as I have said before, but the political forces for any of these are not there. The Belman/Zahran plan requires nothing from Israelis or Palestinians.
So, this is quite amusing. You have shown your
cards, finally. Among Israpundit posters we have one person factions, each hawking their own pet solution. besides the Jordan Option, itself, of course and you with the Kedar Emirates Plan, we have David Singer with his Hashemite Kingdom, Felix with his Trotskyist World Socialist Revolution solution somehow joined to Zionism, with Reader often by his side, especially with their Russia First policy which Ted is somewhat more ambivalently inclined towards, understandably. . Honeybee with everything Texan. Edgar and Felix with everything Irish, who’d I leave out? Where’s Leo Rosten when we need him? 😀
@Peloni no objection to JO if it were real but I do not believe it is real. You do obviously.
No plan in the conflict will ever be perfect or easy but one that is simply non-existence or fictional is the worst.
@Bear
Well, Kedar’s plan is another plan to consider besides the JO, but I would argue that it is easily NOT a better one to focus our efforts upon. The JO both separates the people, and redefines the very circumstances which have for years been used to keep the ‘king’ in Jordan safe from his Pal subjects while Israel bares the consequence of him doing so. The problem, therefore, exists on both sides of the Jordan. In fact, the recent diplomatic pouch containing Jordanian funds and arms to foment the ongoing war within Israel’s borders makes the case of this fact quite clear. Mudar, will return Jordanian citizenship to the Pals in Israel, reversing the international crime committed against them by the Hashemites and thus removing the need for Israel to address the needs of these otherwise stateless peoples within their borders. Mudar will educate the Pals with an honest non-Islamist education, banning the MB from all of Jordan. Furthermore, the JO provides for the strategic removal of the most radical members of the Pals in the J&S, so that the very best source of Jihadi’s will be drained away first. The JO also provides for a better lifestyle for the Pals by providing them an economic future where they may find something more to fill their day than the focus upon Jihad by their Islamist leaders. So, rather than structuring a top down political solution alone, the JO provides for changes on the ground to both divide the Jews from the Pals while also changing the political, economic and geographic foundations upon which the ongoing strife has been based over the past century. Kedar’s plan does none of this. From every angle and in every proportion, I would suggest that the JO provides better parameters for security, prosperity, and peace.
Furthermore, if we choose to proceed with the emirates plan, it would remodel the existing PA den of iniquity into a somewhat stable, and likely well subsidized program of forever maintaining the Pals on the lands they hold today. Such attempts to mollify the Pals with Self rule would at best lead to the creation of the very opposite effect of incentivizing the Pals to self emigrate, which is a far less palatable outcome, or so I would again suggest.
Palestinian Emirate Solution
There is no clear and easy solution to the Israeli Palestinian Conflict.
Nir Barkat has put himself into the camp of believing that Palestinian Emirates as Kedar has proposed for years is the most plausible solution. These would be autonomous Palestinian Tribal Entities run by an autocrat in each area. He says they could cooperate with each other if they wished but there would be no Palestinian State. In other words there would be an emirate each in Gaza, Jericho, Hebron, Nabulus, Jenin…..)
Could this work? Israel would apply sovereignty to all Jewish Towns, Area C, Jordan Valley and any peaceful Arab Emirates in Area A could run their own affairs. The IDF would have overall security west of the Jordan River but the Emirates would be allowed to do their own city service type management (garbage collection, local policing, education).
The Emir or leader of each tribe would be required to cooperate with the IDF and Shin Bet to ensure security in each entity. Peaceful entities would be allowed to send day workers to Israel. Non-peaceful Areas would end up under Israeli Martial Law and would lose autonomous status.
As I started there is nothing perfect or easy or it long ago would have occurred.
The Palestinian Authority is rapidly dissolving, they have stopped security cooperation with Israel. This was their main rational for being allowed to exist from an Israeli perspective.
Terror in Judea/Samaria is up significantly. Israel is fighting the terrorists constantly and as Ben Gvir correctly says a major operation is needed to clean the dens of terrorism. So the following actions are needed:
1. Wipe out Hamas, Fatah, Islamic Jihad terrorists and cells.
2. Find & Work with a Tribal Leader in potential Pal Emirate to autonomously manage a certain specified area.
The advantage of this Emirates concept is that Israel by itself works with a local tribal leader and no conferences or concurrence of any foreigner is needed. No USA, no EU, no Jordan………………
Will it work? I see no other immediate realistic ideas. The other alternative is the Civil Administration does all the work at great cost to Israel in many ways.
If Jordan ever becomes a democracy ( I have serious doubts about this being viable) they could allow Palestinians to emigrate to Jordan who wished and bestow Jordanian Citizenship upon them. They could also give Jordanian Citizenship to any Arab living in one of the Emirates. There is no clear and easy solution to the Israeli Palestinian Conflict.
@Bear We are agreed that the problem is a homicidal Arab fifth column living within striking distance of Jews and making big parts of Eretz Israel Judenrein.
As to solutions:
Have you got a better idea or even another one?
@Bear
https://www.israpundit.org/the-end-is-near/
and
https://www.israpundit.org/it-wont-be-long/
In another communication that I received, maybe an email or tweet, everyone was told that the US had rejected him.; I am now looking for the source.
@Sebstain, let me paraphrase you are saying. Israel has many problems, including that there are many Arabs who would like to kill Jews. That I agree with completely.
However, that Mudar taking over Jordan is not realistic to say the least, so it does not solve the problems.
Why do I harp on this because in order to solve problems one must recognize the problem first. Secondly make a realistic plan to solve the problem and then implement that plan. So focusing on things are not going to happen will allow the problem to fester. Evidence of that is all the years people have focused on the two state concept which is not a solution but a formula for war from less secure borders for Israel.
I would wish Ted would recognize this and use Israpundit to debate ideas that have a more realistic chance of occurring. Israpundit readership could also go up and be a force for positive change.
@Ted, what proof do you have that the Crown Prince has been rejected by the USA? Also what proof do you have that the King is gravely ill?
I suggest you must prove these statements or that clearly leads to more loss of credibility.
I did an internet search on the above questions and found nothing to substantiate you claims. Is this more Mudar mutterings, that are impossible to prove and the answer is wait and see?
@Sebastien
Thank you for your whole hearted support of the JO.
@Bear
You are correct to point out that we have forecast the immanent fall of the king a number of times in the past. You suggest that no one believes us any more. This is the wrong take away. The proper take away is that there were more obstacles than we thought and that we have persevered. The reason for our perseverance is that we believe in ultimate victory. We do so, not because we are fantasizing but because me know not only the obstacles but also the forces which will ultimately bring us victory.
What we do know is that the king is gravely ill and can’t continue. We also know that the crown prince has been rejected by the US as his successor. This means that there is no heir apparent.
We also know that Mudar is the leading candidate for the next leader of Jordan and has been invited as the leader of the opposition to come to Washington and meet with the US Congress. I hope to attend that meeting along with Mudar and others. I think that this meeting is not to decide whether to recognize him as the future leader but to confirm his as the leader.
It seems to me that the ducks are all in a row.
@Bear True, On the other hand, Bear, however much of a long shot it may be, we should pray for its success, in my opinion, because, forcible transfer being off the table, for both internal and external political reasons – even for terror towns like Huawara – The Jordan Option is the only game in town that if implemented, has any chance of reducing the daily lethal violence against Jews, which in Israel, is a daily thing since the Oslo Accords and the Judicial coup d’etat in the ’90s and early ‘2000s since its about motivating a significant number of them to leave and for the remainder, with the exception of Israeli Arabs, many of whom showed their true colors last year, legal residency as Jordanian citizens, making it possible to deport the violent ones. and someplace to deport them to with a river as a natural border wall. I am reminded here of the title of the 1946 East German film from DEFA studios, “The Murderers Are Among Us.”
I noticed in a comment I made in 2019 that continuous imminent predictions of the Kings downfall means one loses credibility. It is 2023 and same spin cycle is going on. Credibility is long ago shot. The boy cried wolf so often and is basically now so hoarse in crying wolf it has become completely unbelievable.
@Ted What do you and Mudhar Zahran believe will be the repercussions, if any, of the marriage of Jordan’s crown prince to the scion of a prominent Saudi family – attended by Saudi aristocrats and royals from all over the world. as reported in today’s I24 news – on the prospects for the removal of the king and the implementation of the Jordan Option in the near future. not to mention the prospects for the extension of the Abraham Accords to include Saudi Arabia, especially in the light of the Hashemite regime’s recent saber rattling towards Israel and Netanyahu’s prioritization of normalization with the Saudi royal regime which before this was a rival of the Hashemites? I24 Is hailing this as a normalization of relations with Saudi Arabia which used to give aid to the Jordanian monarchy.
On another note, it is interesting that the new crown princess is an architect which would be in line with MBS’s faction rather than than the Wahabist mullahs. But modern Arabs can also be antisemites. Look at Queen Rania.the crown prince’s Palestinian mother, who wrote a children’s book and had it translated into every language but Hebrew.
Disassemble the mosque and Fedex it to Medina.
Temple Mount should be Israel’s to manage. Mosque’s ONLY on Temple Mount should left to Local Residing Israeli Arab NON-Radical Iman’s to manage.
@ Ted Belman:
His answer was very muddy. His preference for Saudia was, according to him, that they had lots of experience in hosting people coming on Haj, even enemies like the half million Iranians. This was I presume to show their “moderation” and tolerance”. There was no mention of the many hundreds of millions of dollars that the Haj brings to the Saudi economy.
Nowhere did I hear that Israel has any right to (at lest) ANY part of the Temple Mount, which by ll historical, moral and legal grounds belongs solely to Israel…just that they could “talk” about it. . Your post above is pure equivocation, rather like the way Mudar skirted round your VERY straight and focussed question although his “ramble” was much worse. . I was surprised that you didn’t press him on it.
Mudar’s position is that he doesn’t think JOrdan under his leadership should be responsible for Al Aksa.. He has nothing against my suggestion. But Saudi Arabia has expressed a strong interest in being responsible. That is one of the carrots offered to them to accept the Jordan Option.
Yes, there are all kinds of consequences which flow from this. It is for Israel to decide on such a change. I think on balance she will see that the Jordan Option is worth it.
Ted asked a very pertinent, pointed question about the sectioning off of the Islamic Aksa Mosque leaving the rest (for the real owners) for Jewish control. Mudar began gabbling completely around the question, although Ted had been quite clear. It was never answered properly. Maybe I missed it…..???
On another point, if the Koran was to be revised, then the “Aksa” which means the farthest point” would undoubtedly be correctly understood to have been Medina, which was the furthest area to which Islam had then penetrated The very much later fake assumption of the furthest point was The Temple Mount, was never even mentioned in the Koran.., At that time The Mount held a Byzantine Church at the very extreme of the southern platform (converted many years later to the Al Aksa) and was a rubbish dump before Abd El Malik (on the suggestion of it’s holiness, by his Jewish advisor) built his competing (against Mecca) Dome of the Rock….
This was an interview that I’m sorry to say, did not fill me with any anticipation of anyone’s imminent departure. More like a “space-filler.”…..I was very disappointed.
It seemed to me basically just a stage for Mudar to repeat his already time worn platitudes and unprovable assertions. I ws MOTE than disappointed as I have great hopes for the CONCEPT…if its ever actually realised IN FACT. I believe iTed’s bona Fides, and am relying on his strong belief. .
Mudar Zahran seems to prefer replacing the Hashemites at Al Aqsa with the Saudis. If I were a Muslim, with a stake in Al Aqsa, I would find this impossible to swallow. The Hashemites are collateral descendants of Muhammed; During WWI, they conquered much of the Levant, including Jordan, and were recognized by the British and others as rulers there. The Saudis, on the other hand, have never ruled beyond the Arabian Peninsula.
Israel predicted years ago Assad would be gone. Well Assad is still in charge.
If a Stock Broker always makes predictions that do NOT come to true he loses all credibility and his clients.
So continuous imminent predictions of Abdullah II downfall when they do not occur also leads to a lose of confidence in the predictor. No matter why it did not occur. Under promising and over delivering leads to credibility. Over promising and under delivery lead to a crisis in confidence. That is true in the world of business and the world of intelligence.